Happy birthday to WUWT – 5 years today

I’ve sort of dreaded writing a post for this day, mainly because it brings out a lot of emotions when I look back over 5 years. I started this blog under the auspices of the local newspaper, the Chico Enterprise Record, 5 years ago today. Originally I told the editor that I wanted to do a broad based gee whiz sort of science blog, and that’s what I set out to do.

I do remember saying that “I’ll try to keep the posts on global warming balanced with other topics”. We all know how that worked out. As a result, I branched out from the newspaper to a better publishing platform than the kludgey Moveable Type the newspaper used, to WordPress and my blog now does more traffic than all the newspapers, radio, and TV stations in my little town combined. Here’s my very first blog post on my old newspaper blog 5 years ago today. A summary and thoughts follow that.

There’s lots I could say, in way too many words, so I’ll just go on a series of bullet points as I think about things.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good:

I’ve learned a tremendous amount about climate science that I did not know before. Every day here is an education.

I have friends all over the world now, something I never had before I started blogging. I wanted a pen pal in grade school, now I have thousands.

WUWT regularly beats all other climate related blogs on the planet, I’m particularly fond of the fact WUWT beats RealClimate every day of the week and twice on Sundays in traffic and reach. WUWT is almost always in the top 5 blogs worldwide on WordPress and on Wikio.

WUWT has won two “Best Science Blog” awards for which I’m revered by some, reviled by others.

Cartoons by Josh – I never thought I’d have a talented cartoonist help me get the word out. Thank you Josh for the laughs and for the biting satire.

WUWT has 94.6 million page views now, and will reach 100 million page views soon. This is the 6120th story, there are 705,385 approved reader comments as of this writing.

I have people who see this blog important enough to want to help me with it, moderators, guest posters, people who leave tips and email me stories. I’m forever grateful to you all.

I’ve written two publications on station siting, one peer reviewed in JGR, the other published by Heartland, which made NOAA react to it because it exposed just how poor their climate network was. A second peer reviewed paper is coming. A federal GAO report this summer confirmed what I discovered; the climate surface observing network is a mess.

I’ve seen more of the USA and the world than I ever thought possible. I’ve surveyed hundreds of weather stations in the USA, toured Australia, and seen Belgium to attend a conference.

I regularly converse with scientists world wide, and they kindly offer guest posts and articles here. I’m humbled.

While many won’t admit it, logs and emails show me that scientists, media, bloggers, and some former politicians worldwide read WUWT. While they may hate what I and others have to say here, they can’t ignore it.

While there’s a lot of good people out there, I’ve realized that there’s a lot of really angry and irrational people out there too that will do everything in their power to see me and this blog denigrated and reviled whenever possible. You know who you are. I have enemies all over the world now, something I never had before I started blogging. It is a strange realization for me.

As a result of the first point, sometimes I let my humanity get the better of me, and I’ve written a few things I’m not proud of. To those I’ve inadvertently offended, you have my sincerest apologies. To those who deserved it, you have my regret that I wasn’t more succinct.

This blog has taken a measure of my life that I could have spent doing other things. For example, I used to own a fishing boat I’d use on weekends and I used to take real two week vacations where I wasn’t trying to scout out weather stations. My wife and my kids see less of me than they should as I spend way too much time keeping up to date on the latest in climate science and the hoopla surrounding it, relaying it to you all.

Running the blog has affected my health; too much keyboard time has added girth, blood pressure, and stress.

Running the blog has affected my business, mostly with time and focus, but there’s some ugly parts too.

The Ugly:

The 10:10 video, Hansen’s death trains, Greenpeace’s “We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.” commentary, and Grist’s “Nuremberg style trials for climate skeptics” – ’nuff said.

I’ve had a number of incidents where the ugly side of the climate debate has confronted me and my family. This includes a mentally imbalanced woman from Nevada City who has stalked me and interfered with my business and livelihood and a host of cowards who work in the shadows prying into my life because I write things they disagree with. They look for imagined “big oil” connections everywhere, because well, “he just couldn’t be doing this on his own”. Heh.

I have evidence that my trash has been collected at my office by somebody other than the trash service. All trash is shredded now, because it really is none of your damn business. If you try it again, please do smile for the new cameras at my home and office and I’ll make you a star right here the next morning.

Last year somebody in Toronto setup a fake website just one letter off my business domain name to mirror my own company website, and made a shopping cart that appeared to take orders but delivered no product. It took me months to discover what was going on and to get it shut down. Meanwhile, it damaged my business.

Also in Toronto, about the same time my business website was fake mirrored, a former geology student, male model, ladies man, celebrity cook, marathon runner and Mac repairman setup a mirror WUWT blog, also just one letter different than the WattsUpWithThat.com domain name, to regularly write denigrating and juvenile things about me and the people who contribute here. While I can’t yet make a legally binding connection between the two spoof websites that popped up at about the same time from the same city, and it could be coincidence, it is very suspicious. I hope I’m wrong.

For daring to ask for a factual correction to a slimy article, it was suggested that I have sex with farm animals, see here and scroll down to the bottom.

In retrospect, while the ugly side of the bizarre world of climate activism is something I’d rather not have experienced, it does tell me one thing: WUWT is being effective, because if it weren’t, there would be no need for these people to do these illegal and juvenile things.

Factoid: I used to be a climate alarmist, but now I’m a skeptic.

Back in 1990, I used to be just like some of the climate activists today. Inspired by what Dr. James Hansen said to congress in his famous speech in June 1988, I felt like I had to “do something”. That culminated in nationwide project with the National Arbor Day Foundation working with TV weathercasters and meteorologists nationwide to convince their viewers to plant trees to offset CO2. In 1990 and 1991, I delivered a video graphics presentation for local TV weathercasters and meteorologist to narrate on this subject for the benefit of their viewers. It was delivered nationally via satellite courtesy of CBS Newspath, where I had done some work and had connections. I can remember browbeating TV people then to carry the program I developed because “it really is the most important thing you can do right now”. A 1990 National Arbor Day foundation report showed that 174 TV stations participated and they mailed out over 240,000 Colorado Blue Spruce seedlings to viewers as a result. Truly, I felt as if I had “done something”, and I can relate to how many people who feel motivated to “save the planet” must feel today.

Then, in 1996, I saw this graph. And I said to myself, “how does CO2 know which counties to heat more than others”? After that I was no longer much worried about CO2 and climate, but I did become worried that science was ignoring the measurement environment. It wasn’t until ten years later that I did something about it.

Then much later I discovered that Dr. Hansen’s scientific position was so weak in 1988, he resorted to stagecraft. So much for my “save the planet” inspiration from him.

About my experiences with professional climate scientists:

I’ve had interactions with professional climate scientists though these five years, and I’ve taken them for face value in what they told me. In 2008 I visited NCDC at their invitation and in the spring of 2011, I visited BEST in Berkeley. My biggest regret is that I put too much trust in these scientists, because quite frankly I couldn’t believe (at the time) they’d do the things they did related to the station data gathered by myself and by volunteers of the surface station project. Apparently, it was so threatening that in each case, my trust had to be publicly abused so that these scientists could pre-empt my own work. I won’t trust them again, and I won’t be so quick to trust anyone else on the opposite side of climate science again, especially where money and prestige is involved.

I have another paper coming, with a broader perspective, and there’s no way I’m going to share that data ahead of time with these people again. Everybody will have to wait until publication.

What’s to come?

I have ideas for a peer reviewed version of this blog, as well as a new format that will open it up more and allow for a greater variety of publications and interactive media. Look for that in the coming weeks and months. I’m also planning a “letters to the editor” feature, but with a twist. I also hope to take a vacation where I have no electronic tether of any kind that is on my person or can be reached. I really need to unplug for awhile.

Thank you.

I wish to thank all of you that have helped me, encouraged me, sent me letters of support, and who have offered kind comments. There’s way too many of you to list individually, but know that dozens of people are in my thoughts as I write this. I wish to thank all of the people who visit here every day, and who comment and link WUWT elsewhere to help spread the word.

I must name a few special people though. Please take no offense if you aren’t named. I thank David Little for giving me a start with the local newspaper blog, Steve McIntyre for inspiration, Dr. Roger Pielke Senior for his trust and encouragement, Dave Stealey for keeping the faith, Evan Jones for making lemonade with the Rev’s special Holy Water, Willis for being Willis here, Mosh, Charles The Moderator for keeping me on the straight and narrow, and James Goodridge for helping me see beyond the data. There’s also a very special person I can’t name, but I hope you enjoyed the WUWT mugs and T-shirts I sent.

Most of all I thank my family and friends for enduring my path through the ugly side of climate blogging.

Pity I missed seeing you in Australia. Yours is about the first blog I look at when I get a chance.
Keep up the good work. It is unfortunate that there are so many nasty people around- politics and no ethics. People who lie, stretch the truth and have no ethics normally lack understanding about the subject in question. The latter seems to apply to those who call themselves climate scientists and in particular the team and their fellow travellers. They do not understand the basic thermodynamics, heat transfer, mass transfer, fluid dynamics and reaction kinetics which are engineering subjects. Assessment of climate and weather is complex and no one has complete knowledge but it helps to understand and appreciate the breadth of the basic technology.
I have a lot of time for Willis and enjoy Josh.
Anthony thanks again
PS I use a pseudonom to protect relatives who are doing useful research.

In only 5 years you have been able to create this site? From nothing? And apparently,… by accident?
Just shows that speaking the truth, and having the tenacity not to conform can do amazing things!
Now, unplug yourself and take that holiday. You have earned it.
( Would somebody close to Mr. Watts make sure this happens? Force may be required ).

Happy Birthday from the oil sands City of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. The one and only city in Canada, North America, and many parts of Europe blamed the most of any city on planet earth FOR Global Warming, destroying the planet, CO2 production, and other assorted crimes against David Suzuki, Al Gore, Greenpeace, and other assorted tree huggers.

If anyone on this planet appreciates this site, your personal efforts Anthony, and the quality of the many, many brilliant contributers highlighted here on these pages arming me and providing me with deadly ammunition I use every day – it is us!

Hope you and your contributers have many, many more Birthdays like this one! However, that first post – well – the writing should have been much, much smaller.

with links and more nonsense
:
15 Nov: Reuters Alertnet: Trust.org: Climate sceptics get less press in developing countries
In the United States, over a third of climate articles published during the study period in selected newspapers reported sceptical standpoints while less than eight per cent of articles did so in Brazil, China and India.
The reasons include a greater willingness to accept the authority of scientific experts, the lack of powerful industrial lobby groups, and different journalistic cultures, according to researchers from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
Another factor, suggest the researchers, is that developing countries are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, and are focussing their efforts on responding to it, rather than discussing whether it exists or whether human activity is responsible.
The survey, ‘Poles Apart — The international reporting of climate scepticism’, funded by the British Council, was based on an analysis of over 3,000 articles in two newspapers from each of six countries: Brazil, China, France, India, the United Kingdom and the United States…
Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the UK’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the UK’s London School of Economics, said that developing countries, such as China, were also beginning see economic advantages in producing and exporting new technologies designed to adapt to global warming…

Thank you Anthony for educating me and others. Without you, Jo Nova and Dellingpole we would be far less wise. We in Australia have seen first hand the lengths to which some politicians, advised by extremely poor scientists and egged on by the most naive and biased reporters, will stoop to push the AGW barrow and it’s imaginary impacts and solutions.

The MSM consistently refuse to publish the graphs that deny AGW and it is on your site we rely for information. Thank you and best wishes.

As recently as 2 years ago I never heard of WUWT. Meanwhile it is my absolute favorite and I enjoy it each day.
You’ve done a great work unveiling the oddities and untruths of climate science and I’m sure you haven’t convinced only a few alarmists to reconsider their attitude.
I hope, WUWT will live “long and prosper”, but , Anthony, please keep an eye on your family and your health. Allow yourself relaxation and contemplation. This has the topmost priority!

Happy Birthday, Anthony. I too began looking at climate claims in a new light after a talk by James Goodridge. Started me thinking. And while I think it behooves us all to keep an open mind about both (or all… There really are more than two sides to this line) sides of the climate debate, I do come down strongly on the side of scientific freedom. And the examples of scientific intimidation from those who are afraid of healthy skepticism are causing me to lose faith in the process. Your blog is helping me to regain some of that.

Thanks Anthony and to all your helpers, and a special thank you to your family for the support and joy they give and share through you. It is a changing world and a challenging world that we live in and one where you have shone light and learning. Be proud of what you have achieved and I wish you well in the future.

Thanks for sharing your life in our interests and, in the interest of truth and the advancement of science.

Anthony,
You are a jewel! Thanks for the amazing work you do. But, please, make an appointment with your local gym or swimming pool, twice a week or so. Take the time to get all those tests and treatments we need as we get older. I’d like you to see all of what will come of your work while you are still above ground.

Like you, I’m hearing impaired and have been for 40 years. I know how easy it is to stay away from people to avoid the frustrations of not hearing. How you manage to be so public and out there astonishes me! What courage!

Finally, an old dear bridge friend, who was a survivor of the Bataan Death March, gave me some of the best advice I ever got: “Don’t let the jerks get you down.” Focus on your purpose and the many people who love and admire you, those who cheer at your success! Don’t waste your emotional energy on the others. Fight, if you must, and then forget them.

Only 5 years? Seems like I’ve been lurking about this fine establishment longer than that! Went to see you in Adelaide (Australia) and gained a new appreciation of the kind of individual who can have such a profound effect on the AGW debate. Truth and honesty are traits that are under rated in so much of public discourse – winning seems to be the only measure. Years reading this blog has shown me a consistency in both these characteristics that I admire.

Thank you so much, Anthony. It is so comforting to visit a place every day that is not fraught with hysteria; where it’s OK to utilize common sense; and where there is an insistence on civility. WUWT should be – and I hope already is – the poster-child for how-to-run-a-blog. Please accept my gratitude for you do.

I think the biggest thing I take away from WUWT is “No one knows the truth.” The world is too complex, and the real truth is in the “muck and mire.” Sorry about your bad thinking about Muller, and I wish that had worked out better for you. He seems to me to be the most sane “Warmistas” I’ve discussed with: certainly vastly more sane than the religion going on over at Real Climate, or the downright lies from Gore.

And I really enjoyed your deconstruction of the Gore “Science” experiment. How many disciplines were involved in that? From the thermometer “difference” graphics, to the careful replication of the experiment, including finding the same equipment, and using whatever tools you had available to provide a precise replication. While Gore is a polarizing figure, and his believers won’t be dissuaded any more than those who see what he is could agree with him on anything, it would be nice to find someone that sucked up that stupid science experiment and point them to your analysis. But maybe Gore has become irrelevant. It seems he has.

Finally, I’ve always felt there is a big divide in Climate Science. There are the measures, and there are modellers. I’ve often said that “Measuring the earth’s temperature, past and present” is a very difficult task. If the measuring stick is broken, what can one say? In any event, I suspect your efforts helped start BEST, and while I understand you have ethical issues with the BEST leadership, I wouldn’t give up. Sometimes humble people, such as yourself, and as exhibited by the care in which you deconstructed Gore’s experiment, have a hard time with the prima donnas. I hope not all is written in that relationship, though that is for purely selfish reasons of wanting to get better data out into the world, even if it is a source of pain for you.

Meanwhile, I’ve spent hundreds of hours on this site, and have thoroughly enjoyed so many aspects of what you are trying to achieve! Congratulations, and I hope you find fulfillment and continue the excellent unbiased work.

Ed

P.S. I’m also glad this blog has avoided the religious tenor at RC. I suspect that if the strong scientific evidence were provided to you and most WUWT readers that AGW is real, they would agree. Not sure I can say that about Gore, RC, or so many of the religious warmists. So I think you have created a better group of people! (Note, I suspect Muller would also be included: again, despite your reservations, I’m pretty convinced he is a real scientist at heart, at least I hope so!)

Congratulations Anthony. Time flies more than ever today. What you built here is nothing short of remarkable! In this strange world where political chants substitute for science and truth, WUWT became a hub where science is what I was taught: a frontier of discovery, wonder, honest critique and open debate. It is no small sadness to look back at the corruption in so many old sources I used to trust. Yet, it is equally heartening to see the expanded access nobody could have imagined when I was in school. Again, truly remarkable.

The thing that stands out most I learned reading this blog:
Never underestimate the weatherman. :-)

Your science website has beeen invaluable in persuading certain of my friends to change their minds about CAGW. Those who haven’t, have drifted away and good riddance. Life is too short to have to deal with ignorant and stupid people in one’s personal life.

As Chief Dan George declaimed “Endeavour to perservere.” (Outlaw Josey Wales) “And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the (CAGW) Union.” ;<) Well done!!

Was going to leave a long post about the respect and admiration you have from me and many others but I’ll keep it simple.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

‘I also hope to take a vacation where I have no electronic tether of any kind that is on my person or can be reached.’ – best place I found is either Frazer Island or the Whit Sundays (best beach in the world).

I do trust you plan to sue this “Beast” guy right out of his underwear… The “Correction” is not only slanderous, it is intentionally so. The downside is he probably is a jobless twerp living on social security whose only “work” is to be part of the usual rent-a-mob at “Green” protests and other antisocial activities …

Congratulations Anthony, and happy birthday, WUWT. This website has become an indispensible part of my daily routine. And part of what makes this site outstanding are the outstanding comments. My thanks to all of you.

I can remember the first time I came across WUWT. So much interesting things to read, I thought! And then, it kept getting better and better, each time I came back…
Anthony & WUWT have also been an inspiration for all of us that started blogging along. In a few years, the historical significance of this will be a very interesting case-study.

Anthony, finally: when is the 100M user expected to get to WUWT. I believe that will be an even bigger celebration !!!

Ecotretas

The following times will not be easy, though. Durban will probably be a mega-fiasco, but all these indignant greens will start struggling. Pressure will mount on journalists who pass the story, as has happened with Irene Meichsner in Germany, and with Isabel Tavares, yesterday in Portugal. We, Free People, have to stand up against this new Green Religion.

Mr. Watts, you’re quite amazing in your talent of just staying yourself, and thank goodness there are honest people like you around.

Don’t know if I ever told you but I picked your site purely on a simple hunch. A few days before i sent you those charts on solar activity I had never visited a climate oriented site before, actually never had posted anywhere but a handful of times, but yours had a post called “It’s the sun, stupid!” and I knew I should send them to you. Whew! If I had picked RC or sent those to the bunny hole, or worse, I would have been burned at the stake not realizing that content was pure blasphemy. I had never heard of a scientist having a “burning belief”, any scientist questions everything, right? Majoring in science but not working in science seems was my warped view of reality. I was quite naïve.

Owe all learned since to WUWT. There are some good minds here and hope there may be a 10th!

Anthony: As a regular visitor, commenter and guest author, my thanks to you for the countless hours of work that goes into providing this forum, which allows us to learn and to share what we’ve discovered. Thanks to the moderators for keeping the content civil and to the guest authors for the sharing their insights. And a special thanks to your family for supporting your efforts here.

I sometimes fret what would happen without you. Your blog is so balanced between the informed science, the openness to ideas, the clarity, the humanity, and the reflection of my own journey. Sure you were maybe once a fairly ordinary guy, but you had just the right talents, training, and attitude, at the right time in history. And you’ve shown guts, humanity, and staying power, far beyond the call of duty, at a time of dire need.

For I have no illusions about the nature of our fight. Like WWII, although it is being fought out at a very physical level of reality (classical science), it is still primarily spiritual warfare, from my POV. It is about the need for integrity, particularly in science; the undreamed-of situation of corrupt science; the undreamed-of causes and consequences of corrupt science; and the undreamed-of presence of so many who will not face the idea and evidence of corruption in science, who though nominally scientists cannot recognize the presence or absence of the practice of Scientific Method.

At the same time, it has been a joy to meet those who have been roused from slumber or activism on the other side, to reconsider and to fight – and to meet experts to whom I can relate directly. To enjoy an extraordinary sense of family and fellowship and belly-aching “new keyboard time” laughter.

My great discovery here has been that Scientific Method is primarily a “wholistic” attitude of mind and soul, that wherever one cuts the evidence from a person, its presence can be detected. One key factor in Scientific Attitude is the ability to admit when one has been wrong.

Congratulations Anthony and happy birthday to WUWT. It seems like 5 more than years since I started reading your blog so I think I must have been an early convert. WUWT heads the most visited list on my Chrome browser.

And thank you so very much for all the fantastic posts and also those of your posters and mods.
Besides the science, of course the humour. :)

The very best wishes on your auspicious day to you Anthony, Mrs W and the Wattlets. And in the years ahead.
And Kenji and the cat!

If coming Australia’s way there will be plenty of Aus people offering hospitality to you, your family, guest posters and mods. Just let us know your thoughts and dates of visiting! And watch the inbox as we all fight for the honour.

Congratulations Anthony. You have devoted a very significant part of your life (and best wishes to your wife and family who had to do without you to for all your efforts). I had – and do – enjoy your blog and I think the world is a better place for it. You do tend to use the same mud slinging – perhaps subtly to you (like ‘this’ and then the link is ‘turd polish’) but sometimes one has to use a 2 by 4 between the eyes to get attention. Still, a little more civil commentary would raise you above the many of the others. As Lincoln (or B.T.Barnum or whoever) said ‘you can fool all of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time’. Your blog goes a long way to keeping this free spirit, independence and open thought alive . Without it the planet – and societies – would be a poorer place.

Thank you so much for helping me see through the CAGW hysteria. I’ll never forget my first introduction to WUWT, in mid-2009, with a post that thoroughly destroyed the credibility of Catlin Arctic Survey.

You can also take credit in the fact that I no longer vote for the Greens but, please, don’t expect me to vote for any right wing party at any time in the next 50 years. :)

Have a Happy Birthday WUWT! I have made this blog at least a once a day MUST VISIT site for me and several of my friends. Thanks to this site, I have over the last 4 years of visits massively expanded my knowledge and understanding of science in general and climate science in particular. I have gone from being a novice to now knowing far too much for my wife’s own good as she has to deal with my long rants about the perversion of the scientific method and quasi religious fundamentalism and the environmental elite’s extreme totalitarian fascist tendencies….

Suffice to say, I am greatly in your debt Anthony and in debt to the assorted contributors and commenters. I have learned as much from the contributors of this site through the comments section as I have from the main articles and I love that all sides of the debate are publishable so long as they are respectful and maintain at least mostly clean language.

Also a special thanks for Charles The Moderator who gave me some very kind words about my own ranty blog when I was thinking about quitting blogging. An update for Charles, if you are reading this far, I still blog, but a lot less than I used to. With the UK Government scrapping the ID cards, I do not have as much reason to blog, as the compulsory ID card, was one of the main things my blog attacked. I may get back into it with a main focus on climate and the EU, but I don’t know yet. Anyway, I greatly appreciated those kind words back then, and have never forgotten them.

Congratulations on 5 very succesful years. I rarely comment here but I do visit pretty much every day. Your work is of vital importance to all our futures and our children’s futures. Although on some levels the tide appears to be turning, there is a huge amount of misinformation out there and many people just accept AGW at face value; aided and abbetted by the left wing MSM and the BBC in the UK. So many people have such a huge finacial interest in perpetuating the AGW myth that it will take many years before a more rational view takes hold. Keep up the good work, and do take a break – you deserve it

I prefer to say Happy Anniversary, rather than Happy Birthday, because of the commitment you show to WUWT. I say in a good way you are married to it by the vow of personal and professional integrity. I don’t comment here often due to time limitations, and a respect for those who know more than I do. But I absolutely must join in the celebration.

Chuckled at the mention of the 1996 Goodridge graph because it was a profound moment of intellectual whiplash for me.

Anthony, you deserve everything that’s come your way. You even deserve your enemies in high places because, the sad way the world sometimes works, the more effective you are, the higher the level it is from which the yellow rain is released. May you always have the best of your detractors.

And last, thank you for all the many and wonderful educational opportunities of the past few years. I have found the experience extremely edifying.

Congratulations & many Happy Returns, WUWT. The best blog out there. May you go from strength to strength. May your hearts be stout, & your spirits high.

I was attracted to this site many years ago when elected Vice Chairman of my regional professional branch. I wanted to be able to speak on something if called to, something with a broad appeal rather than a narrow focus. We had a bridge expert, a steelwork expert, a concrete officianado, I new a fair bit about timber engineering, but I thought, “what about Climate Change, & how it will affect structural engineering in the future?”. After all, I was a believer of sorts back then. So I looked it all up. That is when the blinkers came off, the lights went on (for now at least :-) ) & I started listening to & reading articles by (in no order of seniority), Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Monckton, your goodself, Corbyn, Reiter, Morner, et al. My opinion changed completely, thank you! You’ve brought my late father’s words right back at me, he told me from a very young age, “never believe everything you read in the newspapers, or here on the radio, or see on the television, or what people tell you in person, research it yourself & make your own mind up!”

Congratulations
I am confident that when the cAGW scam finally succumbs to its ugly death, you will rightly get the recognition that you deserve for keeping the public aware of the inconsistencies and worse behind this scam. Your surface station project is also to be applauded not least for rallying the troops and showing what can be done by a group of motivated citizen scientists.
As others have said, you are a hero.

Happy Fifth Birthday.
What a fantastic job Anthony you and your team do.
But come on man it seems like I’ve been posting here for ever and only been moderated once;-) So are you absolutely sure it’s only five years, really really sure:-) Please let this one through CTM and the team.
This site offers so much and has contributed enormously to the debate on global warming and as also educated on matters which are really not covered elsewhere. The reason you get more visitors than UnReal Climate is because the truth shines through.
My only suggestion which you are obliged to follow is don’t stop blogging:-)

Congratulations Anthony, and may you keep enjoying the interaction on this site of yours, I have learnt so much myself from you and the huge variety of commenters over nearly 5 years. I missed the start…but I never miss any more.

Anthony: congratulations and renewed thanks for your courage, energy, integrity and good humor. We are all enormously lucky that you sat down five years ago and began to write your way into history. Please stay well and may success continue to attend your work.

Sic Parvis Magna.
If you can do this almost single handedly just think what you could do if we had a team of you…
and a high visibility, direct, public funding platform via a form of an `open book` electronic bank account.
I could organise a coffee morning.
Please keep up the good work

I am one of those visitors to WUWT that feel compelled to check it many times a day, and as I’m a desk-based computer professional, the opportunity to do so is always present. I do wonder what proportion of the 100 million page views are due to people like me who are simply addicted, and start to get nervous if we haven’t had our WUWT fix for a few hours.

I’m also very impressed by the tolerance shown on this site. There are frankly some pretty whacko views expressed by some commenters, but unlike some other blogs we could all mention the moderation is very relaxed, and often more knowledgeable folk take extraordinary efforts to correct some of the misapprehensions expressed.

I have learned so much over the last 3 years from WUWT and a handful of other blogs, and really appreciate the fact that several world-class experts are happy to comment and contribute, even when they may not agree with the sentiments expressed by others.

I too used to believe in AGW. Then they tried to erase the Medieval Warm Period. The Warmists lost all credibility for me at that moment. Your excellent blog has made it a lot easier for me to discover that, in the words of Freeman Dyson, “all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.”

As for your ‘non-scientific’ allies In Blighty, it was the Telegraph’s brilliant Christopher Booker who began promoting your excellent blog here about four years ago when he made us question the global warming swindle in his Sunday column. Monkton and Dellingpole have also boosted your popularity too. I’m so glad they did.

Here in the media, until you are triumphant, The BBC, the Guardian and the Telegraph’s David Lean will sadly remain your duped opponents.

Great article Anthony. Bask in your well deserved praise. I read you every day but do take a break if you can. Isn’t it interesting that sceptics are so often decent, pleasant people you’d welcome as friends, and alarmists are so often strident, fanatical, antisocial so and so’s. Happy Birthday!

Congratulations Anthony! 5 years is about the time I have followed the blogs on this issue and it has been a very interesting time. What is your feeling about the sceptic position now compared to 5 years ago?

Congratulations and thanks.
Try to get (good) advice on how to delegate and yet stay in control.
You are sorely needed, as are Steve McIntyre and the Bishop.
Preserve your health, your family and your enthesiasm.
This is not a sprint – unfortunately it is a marathon.
But the truth is slowly coming out and being understood more and more widely.

Anthony, you have so many friends world wide who value you for your honesty, committment and
openness to questions where the science is not settled.Thank you for WUWT.
Best wishes to you and your family.

Much respect and congratulations for what you’ve achieved in that five years, Anthony, and thanks for a good deal of interesting education – not always in matters climati!. Very best wishes for the future, online and off, from the remains of the UK.

Happy Birthday to WUWT!
Thank you very very much Anthony, for this blog.
It made me wiser and more knowledgeable about the climate, and gave me a great reference point to give to people for education on this subject.
Great work, from great people.
Eyal

Congratulations Anthony on 5 years of dedicated work and a great blog which tells the whole story of climate science.

Here is my good, bad & ugly list.

The Good

I am now much more aware of climate issues, with both the science and the politics and can hold my corner against anyone.

I revel in arguing the point with anyone who will take me on. It is so much easier when you have the data and truth on your side, which is very important to me, being from a scientific background.

The Bad

Whilst I cannot put a figure on it, my business must have suffered greatly financially, as I have to have my morning fix of WUWT before getting on with managing my business effectively, so I can sympathise with your situation Anthony, where WUWT would seem to take even greater priority over your business interests. I am of course writing this comment when I should be getting on with my work.

Three of my best friends, who also happen to be the three most prosperous, have all had solar PV fitted and have all profited greatly from the various FIT schemes. Following their boasting of how business savvy they are, I have almost lost each of them as friends in pointing out how unethical they are in using their wealth to screw the ordinary fuel bill paying public, especially those who have been forced into fuel poverty by such policies.

The Ugly

I cannot, but poor scorn and contempt on all our politicians who have promoted and even benefitted from the AGW scam. As I am British, my greatest contempt goes to the leading politicians on both sides of the political divide, but especially Huhne, Cameron, Clegg, Blair, Milliband and Brown.

I revile all the celebrities who use their position to promote the concept of AWG, whilst at the same time doing absolutely nothing to moderate their disproportionate footprints. I hold particular contempt for Stephen Fry, because he has enough intelligence to know better and because I used to greatly enjoy his television series QI until he succoured up to Ted Turner in his series Fry in America and called us “Deniers.”

I hate the BBC for taking every opportunity to push the AWG message and to deny the sceptical voice a platform under their duty to give fair and balanced programming.

Happy birthday, WUWT. I’ve sent you $100 for your 5th birthday and I bet you’re glad the Aussie dollar is so high because I remember when it was below US 50 cents. A few weeks ago it was above parity but now it’s trading in the high nineties. I hope regular reader EM Smith profited on these movements.

Anyway, well done Anthony. I’m still amazed that I stumbled on your site the very night Climategate happened. I sat transfixed at my computer all that weekend as it unfolded.

I was even more amazed that none of the Australian media would mention it. They all put pegs on their noses, fingers in their ears and yelled, “La, la, la we’re not listening!” no matter how many emails I sent them that a great big story was unfolding.

They didn’t want to know and that’s when the scales fell from my eyes. That’s when I realised that maybe the official line was crap.

Congratulations for your success and your powerful committment to science. I discovered WUWT 4 years ago and instantly changed from a being a CAGW believer to a skeptic, embarassed at how deluded I had been. Were it not for WUWT and the other outstanding skeptic blogs, the USA would have cap and trade and, green totalitarianism might have overwhelmed our country as it has in Europe and Australia. I am confident that the tide is starting to turn in this war but there is much hard work and determination remaining for us all.

Happy Birthday to WUWT! And many thanks Anthony for being a shining example of humility, honesty and integrity in the search for scientific truths i.e. for striving to be a true scientist. The tremendous sacrifice that you have made on behalf of science will be eternally appreciated.

Anthony, congratulations! I deeply respect the enormous amount of effort you have put in this blog and also congrats to the different moderators to keep the blog within light moderation in contrast to some well-known other blogs…

I apologise I missed your “see here” about that site. What a charming individual he/she is writing personal insults about people they disagree with. Clearly they just don’t get it & no one has pointed it out to them, once you start the personal insults & attacks, your argument is finished & defeated, you have lost your battle & your war!

It is alleged that the increasteed CO_2 in the atmosphere traps heat. There is little doubt that this is true, and is likely partly responsible for urban island heating, which is a bete noire in the sampling network, and one of the places where the AGW crowd most shamelessly manipulates and renormalizes the far more reliable data (from the point of view of demonstrating real changes) from rural stations.

There are two ways to fix this. One of them is that weather (not climate, weather) stations such as Weather Underground have at this point got a huge number of volunteer weather stations feeding in data to the WU servers. These stations are GPS-located and marked on Google Maps so you can see exactly what their distribution is. Some are inside of cities or towns; many are completely rural. All are owned by people who are interested in weather enough to buy a “certified” weather station and the requisite software that permits the data from the station to be sampled and collected in real time and communicated to WU for use in its tables.

Where I live (Durham, NC), these stations provide an enormously clear signal of UIH. Raleigh-Durham Airport is the “official” weather station, where record heat or cold is recorded and so on. When RDU records began, the airport was a single runway in the middle of the countryside with a single “big” road nearby. It is now rather large — three terminals, multiple runways, trees stripped and replaced by a square kilometer or more of additional tarmac. Where before a half dozen or dozen prop-driven planes landed every day, now big jets land and take off every five or ten minutes on two different runways. The airport now lies flanked by three MAJOR highways that carry rush hour traffice between Raleigh, Durham, and the Research Triangle Park, spending five or six hours total every day filled with bumper to bumper car traffic across a total of maybe 14 lanes, in between cities and suburban developments that have grown from a population of a quarter million to maybe 2-3 million, from cows and deer and trees to vast tracts of housing (see e.g. Cary, NC, or Morrisville, both within a few miles of the airport, and the sprawl visible on Google maps around US 70 on the other side).

I live in Durham, on the “outskirts” of the city along a “country road” between Durham and Chapel Hill. I have my own electronic remote monitoring thermometer sited in the backyard, although I haven’t invested in a full weather station (yet). Basically, I have Duke Forest (and a small suburban tract) around me — deer in the back yard most nights but only a mile or so from a major thoroughfare between Durham and Chapel Hill and a third of a mile from a heavily trafficked road ditto. RDU is routinely 1 degree C warmer than my back yard, sometimes 2, almost NEVER cooler. It is basically blanketed by CO_2 from jet engines and automobiles 100% of the time AND is basically a huge chunk of concrete centrally, although it does have the usual buffer of grassy fields and woods and ponds between it and the roads (and I’m guessing but not certain that the weather station is located out in these “woods” to at least try to ameliorate the UIH effect, although perhaps not).

My own weather is routinely roughly 1C warmer than the temperatures reported by stations about four or five miles further “countryward”. NC has lots of towns that end quite abruptly and give way to real country, not even plowed fields but trees, hills, isolated roads and houses and small farms. Twenty miles out even the light pollution reflected from the high-humidity urban haze that also blankets the “interior” of the triangle of cities fades (which actually is likely to be even more responsible for the trapping of heat than “just” CO_2) and you are finally back to conditions that approximate the airport’s weather station back in the (say) late 40’s and 50’s when it was first built.

The point being that the data is right there, publicly accessible. One could take it and “effortlessly” (well, almost:-) create a contour graph of best-fit isotherms and transform it into a UHI \delta-T, city to countryside, for the whole US. Since the distribution of stations is “random” and “double blind” in the calibration of the contributing thermometers, you simply ignore it — on average they will read high as often as low on the basis of where they are sited and poor calibration or drift — some are inside the cities, some are far outside, nobody arranged to put good ones inside or bad ones outside. Besides, the absolute temperature isn’t what you are looking for, only the contour map of DELTAS relative to the COUNTRYSIDE as the baseline assumed “good” temperature readings. The granularity is even fine enough to smooth over real microclimate differences, if somebody wants to claim that they exist so that they can use them to re-inject confirmation bias into the averages.

Second, an experiment that hasn’t been done AFAIK — but should be — is to go to the very middle of the world’s various deserts — places where the humidity is perpetually very, very low, far from any urban or even suburban source of LOCAL CO_2. By hypothesis, only the CO_2 that is important to “global”, not local, heat trapping is over these locations, the actual 380 ppm or whatever that is supposed to be doing the job all over the world and not the 400-500 ppm that might exist over an airport.

In suitable locations, build remote-readable weather stations that are directly exposed to the night sky. As is well-known, deserts are very hot during the day but get very cold — almost down to freezing much of the time — at night because they have none of the heat-reflecting humidity that is ubiquitous everywhere that is NOT a desert. Their CO_2-based heat retention “signal” isn’t corrupted by confounding and constantly fluctuating water vapor “noise”; the rate at which they lose heat in the form of blackbody radiation straight out to the unblanketed sky is limited PRIMARILY by CO_2 and the other stable components of the atmosphere (N_2 and O_2 mostly).

Measure the temperature at a granularity of (say) one minute from (say) 100 of these stations in 100 different deserts, along with the local relative humidity. Reject any parts of the timeseries where the local humidity was greater than a trace. Ignore the ABSOLUTE temperature day to day, as that will still vary seasonally; look instead at two things — the starting temperature at a fixed time in the evening (say, two hours after sunset) and a fixed time in the morning (say, two hours before sunrise). Scale this data according to the starting temperature and you can extract the nearly pure “cooling signal”. Collect data for (say) five years, long enough for atmospheric CO_2 concentration to have increased by (say) 1% or more. If the AGW hypothesis is correct, there will be positive feedback and the cooling RATE will have decreased by an easily detectable amount (remember, at this point you are accumulating at least 2000 to 3000 “iid” traces per year, where any systematic errors in a given apparatus are themselves averaged out over 100 stations and the fact that you’re using DELTAS, not absolutes.

In this way you can directly measure something even the satellites seem unable to measure — the differential effects of ONLY the CO_2 increase (or at least with minimal confounding by that pesky water vapor that trap heat an order of magnitude more efficiently and that exists in far greater concentrations even on a “dry” day everywhere there are green plants).

Since one is taking the time to build all of these stations in the first place, it is probably worthwhile to install a few other devices in them. For example, a very accurate low-intensity spectrograph, one capable of measuring the BACKSCATTER radiation from the sky overhead right after sundown as the desert cools. The spectrum of this radiation is once again pure data, even better in a lot of ways than the thermal trace. CO_2 reflects PARTICULAR BANDS in the BB spectrum, bands that can be differentiated from O_2 or N_2 or O_3 or CH_4 or perhaps even H_2 0. Detectors can be built that are particularly sensitive and accurate in just these bands. By measuring the backscatter AND the outgoing radiation (perhaps from a tower 100 meters over the desert with a detector facing down) one can get at least the differential increase in backscatter as a function of the ever increasing CO_2 concentration, perhaps even the absolute integrated spectrum over its bands, a direct measure of the amount of the outgoing flux that is being trapped by CO_2 itself and not so much by everything else that isn’t “anthropogenic” or water.

To be really truly scientific, send up a balloon a day onsite to measure the CO_2 and humidity profile all the way up to the top right over the sites — this would be even better than rejection due to measurements at the ground.

Sure, it would cost a few tens of millions to do this, but honestly, that isn’t a lot of money for a “big science” project with the potential to influence TRILLIONS of dollars in public money and an enormous amount of pain for all living humans. Connect it up with satellites measuring some of the same things from overhead, and you can even contemplate properly normalizing the satellite data without the confounding effect of having to punch through the wet parts of the atmosphere (that is, nearly all of it).

As good as your soda bottle experiment is, this one is better. It attempts to directly measure something that so far is little more than a theoretical computation in physics combined with enormously complex models with adjustable parameters that represent things that are unknown — feedback sensitivity, for example — and that can be adjusted to give nearly any answer you like, an open invitation for confirmation bias in their adjustment. By simply providing an actual in-situ estimate of the baseline CO_2 trapping coefficient as a function of concentration, it instantly clarifies much of the discussion both ways — if AGW is a plausible cause of 20th century warming outside of urban heat islands that are currently being exaggerated into “global” warming caused by mankind (as opposed to anthropogenic LOCAL warming that everybody knows is indeed taking place in urban areas) this should quite clearly provide evidence of this, evidence that cannot easily be twisted by confirmation bias as the raw data can be processed by anybody that wishes to, best of luck with it. If it is implausible, that too will be unmistakeably revealed.

My own prior bias — the experimental hypothesis, as it were — is that temperatures in the desert will swing through a range (normalized with e.g. Wien’s Law and coarse-grain averaged) that does not detectably/significantly change over 5 years. This will be further supported by measurements that show no meaningful increase in the backscattered flux in the CO_2 bands that are supposedly primarily (nonlinearly) responsible for trapping the heat, much less than a naive linear response theory would predict because of secondary scattering and thermal diffusion into unblocked modes. That is, a 1% increase in atmospheric CO_2 will not produce anything like a 1% increase in backscatter in the relevant infrared bands, any more than doubling the thickness of a pane of glass on a greenhouse doubles its greenhouse heat trapping.

If this is verified, it would justify if not openly rejecting the AGW hypothesis, at the very least a deep re-examination of its assumptions and the physics. If not, it should in all fairness cause all of us, myself included, who are rather skeptical of both the claim and the correctness of the physical model of trapping underlying the claim to increase our degree of belief in AGW at the expense of our current skepticism. Evidence matters. Not corrupt evidence — one has only to look at the function applied as a “correction” to a straight up average of temperatures from all reporting weather stations in every computation that reveals unrelenting warming to suspect a mix of cherrypicking and confirmation bias, as the null hypothesis is “all reporting weather stations are equally good/bad, accurate/inaccurate” and should be corrected — for example, by throwing out ALL of the urban stations, not trying to a posteriori “correct” their data — only with the greatest trepidation. Direct evidence.

The satellites, to be honest, should be able to observe the hole burned by reflection (if any) in the outgoing spectrum as well, but they sample most of their data most of the time through wet air that confounds the results (oceanic SSTs, for example, simply CANNOT be measured through air with low humidity). AFAIK, they have been unable to make anything like a direct measurement of the CO_2 induced heat trapping, not even an ABSOLUTE measurement let alone a differential measurement, even over the 30 odd years that we have halfway decent data from halfway decent instrumentation overhead.

Teamed up with stations on the ground, directed to “look” the other way at the same time those stations both record conditions on the ground, record the RADIATED spectrum as a function of time PLUS “look” up at the directly reflected spectrum and record THAT as a function of time, PLUS directly measure the associated local temperatures (and changes) to directly feed blackbody radiation computations, if the satellites still can’t detect a meaningful hole in the tranmitted signal in coincidence with complete knowledge of the starting signal at ground level over years of observations it is because their ain’t any signal to detect.

Anthony:
Many, many thanks for all the hard work and inspiration. I still remember being impressed by your literally backyard science on the Stevenson Screens. Your site audit, of course, will go down in the annals of citizen science.
Best wishes

According to 2010 Census your little town has a metro district with a population of 212,000. That’s not little where I come from. It’s huge. My home town in western NY has a population of 6,097. But even that’s big compared to the incorporated village in Texas where I live now which has a population of 400 and the nearest store is 10 miles away over winding 2-lane road.

Happy Birthday!
Your site has clearly engaged at many levels with many people around the world, and I am pleased to be one of them. Some people, some sites even, you walk away from feeling worse than before you met them. Some are just the reverse – every encounter adds something positive, productive, heartening, or informative. You walk away feeling better, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with new thoughts, sometimes even inspired to try do something more yourself in this struggle with dark forces of manipulation and deceit. A struggle complicated by the participation on the ‘wrong side’ of many decent people who have yet to see through the political patter. Your site is one bright light to help us all see a little further and faster. Well done!

No one can govern the sun
No sun takes orders from no one
No one can command you: Be free!
No one can command you: Be thee!
No one can tell you the truth
No one can get yourself loose
No one can govern the moon
No one can undo a tune
Be no ones master, be no ones slave
Sing songs of love and stay

Each tree grows without a king
No king gives planets their swing
Doing is moving a stone
Not doing lets you for your own
Masters can’t move stones alone
Slaves doing move many more stones
Love needs no master nor slave
Be love and be yourself brave
Be no ones master be no ones slave
Sing songs of love and stay

You can imagine how we are feeling here in Australia – lousy! The carbon tax is now L A W! We feel depressed and helpless because we know it is based on a non-problem and is a big fat
L I E! So Anthony, to be able to turn to your site every day and read that, little by little, people like yourself are fighting the LIE on our behalf, means a great deal to us. I can’t add any scientific expertise but I do email many of your articles to my friends and political associates. I regard you most highly and tell everyone about you. I will send your 5th birthday on too as I want everyone to know what a nice person you are. Actually, you make me think twice now before I lash out as a skeptic. On the 16th June 2010, it was imperative for me that I went to hear you speak at the Sheraton Mirage, Gold Coast, Queensland .

This is without doubt my favorite all time blog/source of science information. I enjoy it so much I even check your blog before I check any of my NFL or Dallas Cowboys blogs (which, if you know me says a very great deal about how high I hold your work/blog in regard). I have a morning ritual before going to work where I sit down with my first cup of coffee and peruse the Watt’s Up, NCDC, Solar, and AMSU temp sites.

In an alternate universe McIntyre and McKitrick weren’t interested in debunking climate science models. Anthony Watts decided to retire on a warm island in the Caribbean and the Climategate emails were never released to an unsuspecting public. And despite the lack of rising temperatures the public gave in to catastrophic global warming claims and began paying through the nose for useless green energy projects.
But that’s an alternate universe. Congratulations Anthony for the best science site on the web!
Now back to work because the insurance industry is raising our rates, claiming that…

I knew about WUWT in early 2008 before my brother in Oregon said he was following it which was just before Joe D’Aleo made me realize that current events (SC23 as good as ended and cold PDO) meant my triggers for getting involved in the debate had fired.

I could probably find my first comment, but I remember it had some bad typo and I had to redo it. Best left unfound.

Whenever I do go back, it seems so silly that I regreted not following WUWT starting a few months earlier before the jump to 100,000 page views. I’m also surprised at the familiar names and handles in the comments who are still dedicated followers and contributors. That’s a form of praise I think belongs in “The Good.” I think we all realized we found a gem.

Of course, you, more than anyone one else in the climate field, have redirected far too many hours away from other pursuits. This is not a complaint, as overall it’s a benefit and I hope my time has left the world a slightly better place. However, I fervently hope the world won’t need WUWT in the next five years as it does now, and that’s achievable, it’s even happening now. So perhaps we’ll get our lives back.

Finally, I cannot comprehend how you manage to keep up with this creation, but I’m very thankful that you do.

Congratulations. I hope you derive enormous personal satisfaction from the knowledge that you have and are providing a truly important service to society. Beyond that, it’s obvious from your measured and intelligent responses to attack and vilification that you are among that dying breed known amongst one another as, “A good man.”

Anthony,
I offer my thanks and appreciation for everything you do. On the very day that Climategate hit, I was doing some sniffing around looking for the original source that broke the story and that’s how I found WUWT. Since then, I’ve been back multiple times nearly every day. It’s a terrific site and I’ve learned so much thanks to your efforts.

I do have a bone to pick with you though… I’m in my 50’s and foolishly decided a few years ago to seek a PhD in engineering. My dissertation touches on climate but not from a CAGW perspective. I probably should have been done a year ago but as I do my research and come upon problems, I keep asking myself, “how would a warmist do the extra work?” I invariably decide every time against taking the easy way out of certain situations (by ignoring what I know and others don’t) and am making every attempt to dot my i’s and cross my t’s. In the end, my dissertation will be far better due to the extra work.

Getting back to your initial blog post, did you ever answer the question about why cats are aloof and dogs aren’t? Inquiring minds need an answer!

I can’t believe it’s been five years already! Thanks for all you, your mods, and contributors have accomplished here. It has been a real pleasure seeing it all unfold. This blog has been a vital part of the conversation.

I have been visiting regularly here almost since the beginning, and, although I only occasionally comment, I have passed your site address to many people who were sucked in the by the CAGWers. You have provided incontrovertible ammunition for me to put the realist point of view, and I am constantly surprised by how a few good facts can effect a turnaround in thinking. I believe I have personally ‘turned’ about three dozen people with your help.

I’m sure you have enabled many others to do the same, and so the word spreads.

A very Happy Anniversary to you.

(Please do look after yourself and take that holiday for starters………WATT would we do without you?!)

Happy Birthday WUWT and to Anthony, congratulations on the enormous blog stats which are an iron-clad testament to your site’s effectiveness.

Thanks for the enormous effort you expend daily, and thanks for sharing some tidbits of your new life in the fast lane. Hearing about those rotten cowardly SOB’s that are trolling your business (and your trash) just make me so angry I could [self-snip]. They are very lucky that you are a genuinely nice guy as opposed to the evil oil shill they imagine.

I’ll add my thanks and anniversary wishes, too. This is my favorite website and I recommend it all the time. And, my education here has played a part in choosing my next career–it is at least partially because of you that I came to law school and will graduate with a certificate in environmental and natural resources law next May. Then I hope to enter the fray myself!

Quotation from “Encyclopaedia Galactica” 2200 edition
Compiled from 21st century MSM and other records.
The rise and subsequent triumph of rationalism and the demise of CAGW/AGW
“Major contributions to the ultimate triumph of rationalism, came from the Internet blogs of a relatively few skeptical individuals, who, with minimal resourses, established forums and attracted many thousands of like minded individuals from diverse backgrounds . The statue of Anthony Watts which stands alongside many of his contemporaries in the Moir Museum (Museum of international Rationalism) is an ever present reminder of the struggles of individuals, who selflessly sacrificed their own personal desires, in order to be of service to their fellow human beings.”

All I can say is: Thank you very much! Like many others here, I have learned a lot and am eagerly coming back to learn more! I wish you all the very best, good health, high spirits and all the support you might ever need! What you did for a rational debate of “CAGW” is extraordinary! Keep up the good work!

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

“I have ideas for a peer reviewed version of this blog” – Anthony Watts

Slippery slope. Red tape is the disease, not the antidote. The ivory tower (which has a high concentration of abstractly idealistic people with EXTREME time freedom) would capitalize on such a delectable power grab opportunity to assume control of WUWT. You’d have essentially invented an artificial vulnerability advertised prominently with a tempting bull’s eye. Tied up at committee with administrators tactically building in strategic delays (their favorite game is leveraging the calendar) is neither an interesting nor aesthetic place to be. 80% of time will be wasted on 20% of results (Pareto Principle corollary), a sure fire way to limit submissive human lifetime productivity. But it’s your site. Please be careful. I agree wholeheartedly with your above comments about lost trust. Sincere Best Regards.

Hi Anthony, came to this excellent site more than 2 years ago and since then it’s a daily dose of knowledge, encouragement and laughters. And have learned how a blog, well done, can really make a difference. Thank you very much for your excellent work.
Understand well that your family suffers sometimes, but sure they are very proud of you.
Keep it going.
Will pay the annual subscription for this “scientific Online journal” today. Well deserved.

I love it here. My own life is more complicated at the moment so I have less time to add two cents worth of thoughtful comment. And the added stress has turned my comments a bit more pithy than I care for, but as Anthony blogs, it is what it is. That I still love this site and visit every day, speaks to its open door attitude towards even the little people like me.

Anthony,
It takes real courage to stand by your convictions in the face of the ugliness that this world has to offer. Fortunately for all of the people like me who are relatively anonymous in this debate, there are a few heroes like you who are willing to put their names, businesses and families in the line of fire for what you know is right.

Like you, I did not start out as a sceptic but have grown into one. As a biologist, it was natural to accept what the climate scientists were saying, until it became clear that they had to distort and re-write Earth’s history to support their meme.

I consider Watts Up With That a significant contributor to my post-graduate education, and I sincerely thank you and all of the other contributors, moderators, and supporters.

The Surface Stations project was one of the most interesting investigations ever posted on a website. I tell everyone that is a believer in AGW to go to WUWT and LEARN the truth (for the most part).
I read WUWT every day, and it never fails to enrich my mind with useful and valuable information.
Keep it up, and we may just reverse the minds of the AGW believers.

It is important, Anthony, what you do! What you have done. I thank you. My children thank you. All of our posterity will thank you. You mentioned that you once thought the threat of AGW was so immense that it was the most important thing you could address. Well, it is not the threat of human actions burning fuel, it is the threat of forcibly halting the burning that is the threat. Broadcasting the truth that CO2 is one of the most important ingredients to life and NOT a pollutant is still one of the most important things we can do, and you are our champion! Thank you! We must continue to expose confirmation bias and grant-lead science in all regards, especially where it has become so corrupt–in climate science.

Again, to Anthony and all who work so hard to support this blog, thank you.

Anthony – you don’t know me and I don’t know you. You live in the USA, I live on the tropical island of Borneo.

I am scientist by training and career and you have helped me regain my faith in the scientific necessity of saying “I don’t believe that, because I have asked a simple question and not received a straight answer.” In the late 90’s I couldn’t get a straight answer when I asked why the single European currency was such a great idea, and in 2007 I couldn’t get a straight answer when I asked how Al Gores graph of CO2 and temperature was able to show such perfect correlation when the temperature system is so obviously complex. And I never received a straight answer when I asked why the Maldives will drown when they have survived over 100m of sea level rise in the last 10,000 years.

We live in a world where we are constantly being made to feel stupid or wrong or different if we ask simple questions which challenge orthodoxy. We live in a world where so many people are ready to take up false idols because they cannot think for themselves and are encouraged by a global media which employs so many who also cannot think for themselves. Everything is against us except for a few small places, like WattUpWithThat. What you do is important because for those of us that do ask simple questions and need straight answers, there are not many places left to go. Thank you.

many years ago (when i worked for Environment Canada), it was called global cooling.(70’s)

then it became global warming caused by co2, and i just couldn’t go there, and started looking.

one of the first sites i found was icecap.us, but yours was very soon after and your 2 sites along with others are a daily cruise so that i can learn more from the people who actually want to find out information, without the bias of the LSM.

Thank you and all your Moderators, contributors and your family who have been your help and guidance.

PS, one cupcake is missing, so I think the member of “union of concerned scientists” got that one…

Anthony, congratulations on five magnificent curiousity-inspiring and myth-busting (of pseudo-science) years. We would be so much lesser without you. We stand more proud and tall for the truths of science and the scientific method because of you.

I imagine your expanding girth and raising blood pressure is partly due to your ability both to hold the myriad projections that come with interacting on a blog and to contain (process and evaluate) the projections along with the truths, Not many can do this. I wish for you a regular physical workout everyday so your bodymind can remain at the level of your great intellect and humanity.

I concur with Martin Brumby, the first commenter (November 17, 2011 at 12:14 am) of your fifth anniversary blog: “ANTHONY, YOU ARE ONE OF THE FEW GREAT HEROS WE HAVE FROM THE C21st.”

Anthony – I started reading your blog in January, 2007, following a link from Drudge. What caught my attention at that time was a graph showing temp data from RSS, UAH, HadCru, and GISS – all trending down, in direct conflict with the meme of rising CO2 levels causing temp increases. I have learned much since and am greatful for all the time and effort, and yes, passion you have put into your excellent blog.

You are, without question, the standard, the peer in informing us with well-researched, well-written information. Thank you so much.

Brilliant Blog. Well Done! You are akin to Morpheus fighting the Matrix. One small team fighting the ubiquitous evil propaganda machine. Since you started, I imagine there are millions that have been saved from the Matrix. Sadly there are still many many millions who remain plugged into the virtual reality fed to them by the machine.

Six years ago last month I was pronounced cancer free. Due to the effects of the cancer and the resulting chemotherapy the return to normal health has been a real triumph. I have never returned to full ability to work and am now retired/disabled. WUWT was a life saver for me. After having a fruitful happy working experience and never standing still for 55 years and then having to give it all up. The reading of WUWT consumed much of my time and gave me a great education on the climate topic. I was already a skeptic but your methods and calm respectful manner helped me to understand more than any ever before. Mr. Watts I appreciate your time and the hints that you have sent my way privately over the years. You sir are a scholar and a gentleman. God bless you. We need many more of your ilk.

There is a special genius behind WUWT and you are that genius. I was astounded at the high quality of WUWT when I discovered it at the time of Climategate and I remain astounded today. There is no question that WUWT is the best blog of any kind. You have earned a Nobel in Letters, a Pulitzer Prize, and many more. In addition, you have earned sainthood through your tireless efforts as you support WUWT and move it forward. Your many successes in presenting the truth about climate science and climate propaganda are celebrated throughout the world.

Dave’s post reminds me of Are You Ever Lucky by Dr. Suess.
“Consider poor Mr.Potter, T crosser I dotter; He spends his days out in Van Nuys; crossing T’s and dotting I’s. You are so much luckier than him”.
All of us who come to Watt’s place, where the light shines just a bit brighter, are ever so lucky.
I was directed to this site when Climategate broke and have enjoyed the ride ever since.
Congratulations Anthony on the 5th anniversary of your excellent site.

Hi Anthony, Congratulations.
I wrote about the perils of Manmade CO2 in 1990 as part of my degree. In 2000 my Mother asked me whether I thought Global Warming was man made. My answer was no, because by then the MSM had ramped it up so high that everything was catastrophic and becoming unbelievable (tipping points, melting ice etc.). By 2008 I had broadband at home so surfing and lurking became a hobby. I thought I’d try and find out the facts behind CO2’s powerful influence on Climate as MSM (BBC, ITV & Sky in my case) were still hyping it up. To my surprise their was no concensus in the blogoshere. Far from it. I found your site and its been my homepage ever since.
Thank-you for all your posts, your guests posts, the reference pages and the Tips and Notes from others with the same keen interest in facts rather than fiction.
Gareth

Happy Birthday WUWT. I’ve learned a great deal about the “Climate Change” saga (and many other things!) on this site. The strictly scientific and balanced approach you have consistently maintained is very refreshing and contrasts greatly with the often shallow and aggressive output from the disaster-mongers. Stick with it Anthony, this is important work.

As a long-time lurker (surely it can’t be only five years?) WUWT has been a daily read for me, so much so that I wasn’t all that surprised by Climategate as most of what came out had been postulated prior to the release on these very pages.

As a (non-climate) scientist I have always been a skeptic (that is what the job demands), but WUWT has become much more than a “skeptic” site – it has become a major resource and forum for discussion in the arena of climate science. That such an site is needed outside the mainstream science community is shameful, but only goes to show the value of what you have done and continue to do.

You, the other WUWT staff, contributors and (many of the) commentors are an inspiration.

You have made a difference to this debate globally, how many of us could ever say that. Its disappointing to hear about the hassles directed at you for your contributions to science, but as you say, this world is full of good and bad.

A UK reader who has been with you from the beginning, or very nearly anyway.

Many Happy Returns of the day. I too have been coming here for a very long time, it followed a search about temperatures. As a civil engineering surveyor, I knew the runnaway GW claims were nonsense, and searched to find some common-sense. I’ve been visiting daily ever since, and have learned much about science, but mostly about human nature, particularly the venal and ugly side of life exhibited by warmists. Always remember, when they attack you, it is because they have lost the argument or have no argument worth telling.

Dear Anthony,
Congratulations and thank you for your invaluable contributions to the common sense. As stated before the combinations of (sub-prime) science and politics are deadly. Your blog has been over the years a GREAT beacon including a light of inspiration and a lovable “hang-out” place for independent minds. Thanks again.

I found this blog in January of ’09. It had long been apparent to me that the Alarmists were using a narrow, blinkered slice of recent history to promulgate the superficially-plausible idea that anthropogenic carbon dioxide was ‘polluting’ the atmosphere and endangering the Earth. These propagandists pointedly dismissed the climate history of the past millennium, not to mention the geological eons before. So much was obvious.

But it was here on WUWT that I began to appreciate the full range of research and debate that the Alarmists were ignoring, in their politically-motivated zeal to push governments into controlling vast areas of human economic activity, and to turn progress on its head. Every day new topics and comment threads offered fascinating perspectives on the whole ‘climate’ debate (not to mention excursions into other areas, like astronomy), and while much that transpires is over my head (especially the advanced statistics) I have learned a great deal. My only regret is that I haven’t have time to read through every topic and every thread in full.

So a hearty “Well done!” for providing a forum where rationality and realism prevail—and civility as well: I often cite WUWT as an example on other sites of how a proper forum should be run.

And before I forget, a trip to the Tip Jar to leave a birthday present.

Funny…I started reading this blog when searching for info on Windows XP. Found an article related to my quarry here. Since then, the blog has definitely shifted farther toward climate science, and farther from “technology and recent news”.

Happy Birthday WUWT. It feels like you been around forever and not just 5 years. That is a good thing. I don’t know what I did before this blog came along. I know I used to wonder why so many people were so worried about CO2 when I couldn’t see any evidence for it. I wondered if there were other people out there who also weren’t worried, now I know there are.

You would have fewer enemies if you were still an alarmist. Skeptics are generally a rational bunch. That is why we upset the alarmists so much, people who deal only with emotion don’t know how to deal with rational thought. Rational people try to reason with people they disagree with, emotional people become enemies of those they disagree with.

I’m not sure when it was but around 1990 I planted 6 Colorado Blue Spruces at least 2 have survived and one is 13 feet tall. They are nice, but they didn’t really make a difference.

5 years? You are kidding right? You’ve been doing this blog for 50 years! Well, if the AWG wonks can come up with land data going back 200 or 300 years, and ocean heat content data (based on REALLY tenuous measurements from ships) for 50 years…and smile and say, “This is TRUE, this is USABLE…” then we can extend the internet back 50 years (Yeah, into the early Sixties, yeah…like when the DARPANET was around…yeah, I fought with Marcos, sure…!)

BUT the serious side is that for my 58 years, I’ve learned more in 5 years from WUWT then I feel I did learn in the preceding 50. What an accomplishment.

Ken Hall said
“Have a Happy Birthday WUWT! I have made this blog at least a once a day MUST VISIT site for me and several of my friends. Thanks to this site, I have over the last 4 years of visits massively expanded my knowledge and understanding of science in general and climate science in particular. I have gone from being a novice to now knowing far too much for my wife’s own good as she has to deal with my long rants about the perversion of the scientific method and quasi religious fundamentalism and the environmental elite’s extreme totalitarian fascist tendencies….

Suffice to say, I am greatly in your debt Anthony and in debt to the assorted contributors and commenters. I have learned as much from the contributors of this site through the comments section as I have from the main articles and I love that all sides of the debate are publishable so long as they are respectful and maintain at least mostly clean language.”

Ken took the words out of my mouse!! I could not say it better. I discovered WUWT in Christopher Bookers ST column in UK about 2 years ago. Since then it has been my daily absolutely must read – usually while I eat my lunch. I have been able to utterly demolish every warmist argument that comes up in our office – about a dozen highly qualified practical Civil Engineers of various ages. So much so that any new colleague is warned off raising the topic!! WUWT has provided the substance for my own ideas which were quite simply – “Its been warming for 15000 years since the last ice age hasnt it? And many times before that when we came out of several previous ice ages? What caused those warmings? How do you know that the cause of this one is different from those? And how do you know that the current 15000 year post ice age warming has stopped and that any current warming is somehow disconnected from that? Where is your proof??” And another thought – “Quo Bono – who benefits??” All these thoughts put the whole notion of AGW on my highly suspect list but I didnt know where to look for the facts until I found WUWT and the other related sites. BRILLIANT!! H/t to Christopher Booker who is indefatigable in his pursuit of the AGW idiocies in his ST column.

Many many thanks AW – we will be forever in your debt. Long may you continue and prosper.

Anthony,
I have found WUWT to be a voice of sanity in an otherwise crazy world. I work in scientific research and the place in which I work, has from time to time been red hot with AGW rhetoric and thus you are the perfect antidote after a hard day in the office.

I appreciate all of the efforts that you and the rest of the contributors at WUWT make in helping to educate those of us with a mind more inquiring than just to swallow that which is espoused by the climateGate-Keepers.

I hope you will be able to take a well deserved rest from the blogosphere and return refreshed to once again take up the chalice of truth.

Congratulations Anthony with reaching this incredible milestone. Congratulations to you, your family and all the great people involved.

I am looking forward to your next steps, especially the “letters to the editor” plan with a twist.

You’re a great communicator, a great organizer and a great human being and I am very confident you will find new way’s to influence and involve even more people than you do today.

But please take care of yourself, your health and your security.

We want this great quest against the green totalitarians to continue for many, many years to come and I can’t wait for the day we can call victory over their sick doctrine and their most damaging policies.

Thank you very, very much for the opportunity to be a part of your amazing blog and this great community of writers and posters who get never tired to bring out their sane views on climate alarmism and the science presented by scientists who cooked the books.

The Solar Minimum became a big story that created enormous interest, and got many people learning about the solar cycle for the first time. You were covering it “live,” spotless day by spotless day. And most people learned about the Livingston & Penn ‘disappearing sunspot’ hypothesis right here at WUWT.

Many thanks for your great work and high standards, and courage and integrity over the past 5 years.

I’ve been a regular troll here since the early days, and not a day goes by without me visiting at least a couple of times.
WUWT is often the first link I hit when I sit down with my coffee in the morning. Not the news, not my email, but WUWT. It’s THAT interesting and informative. It’s so good, I even post links to it when discussing climate on other forums and newspaper comment sections.

Thank you, Anthony, for your dedication. I do believe you’ve made a difference in how climate science is viewed.

I come to your blog daily because of the stimulation of reading science being properly debated and seeing the faults in the CAGW paradigm being ruthlessly and forensically exposed.

But what animates me most about the whole debate is the terrible price being paid by the third world as a result of unnecessary and futile policies intended to address the non-problem of CAGW. It is estimated (Goklany) that each year almost 200,000 additional people starve as a result of the hike in world food prices caused by the switch of arable land to biofuel production. And hundreds of millions live in miserable poverty and suffer early death because of the lack of development in their countries. The single most effective remedy for this poverty is not food aid, or clean water, or aids cures, etc – it is access to abundant and affordable energy. This means fossil fuels. Only through wealth creation can these countries break free of poverty.

Extreme weather events also cause death and poverty but they have always occurred. The evidence is that they are NOT happening more frequently or with greater intensity than previously, so they cannot be pinned on carbon dioxide.

One day, climate skeptics will finally win this debate for the simple reason that the climate is not going to do what the models predict. The only issues are when will this happen and how much human misery and economic damage will be caused in the meantime.

Anthony, your blog is highly influential in this debate. You are helping to create a critical mass of scientific realism amongst scientists and laymen which will advance the day when this madness comes to an end. It is likely that your efforts will end up saving many, many lives. The world owes you a huge debt of gratitude and you should be justifiably proud of what you are achieving.

Ken Hall and Brian H Jackson have said it all for me.
Please look after yourself and your family so you can keep me on the daily straight and narrow.
Many cangratulations and thanks,
Sincerely,
Geoffrey C. Greenaway

I very much appreciate you putting in so much time and effort, often at the expense of your health, career and family time, to keep this blog updated. Naturally I hope this site continues to feed my information craving, but I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to go fishing with your kids on the weekends instead. And on a side note, I’m a much bigger fan of the “gee whiz” science articles than the political mudslinging, realizing of course that it was necessary to help expose issues such as climategate and the “exploding deniers” snuff films.

Just donated 30$. It is the least I could donate to someone in charge of a webpage that gave me hundreds of hours of joy every one of the last three years. Put them to good use: get yourself some holidays!

Thank you very much for all your work. I came to WUWT from McIntyre’s blog, and this is currently the one webpage in the whole internet that I do not miss reading any single day. And that is because of you.

Anthony and the team behind WUWT, thank you so much for the research and effort that goes behind each post made on this blog. The content delivers on all levels from the basics to the complicated in such a way that some of us (who look upon themselves as laymens of this debate) find it easy to understand and yes any chance there happens to be discussion on climate change i cant help but refer them to WUWT.

I have been a regular reader for some time but was a skeptic long before- living on a glacial lake bed that was under ice only a few thousand years ago. The discussions of the philosophy of science have been fantastic. I am certain the thousands that read this blog would never give much thought to Karl Popper vs Thomas Kuhn, or have been exposed to Jerome Ravetz’s post normal nonsense. The latest from Matt Ridley on heretics was great. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/thank-you-matt-ridley/
Congratulations on a challenging and wonderful resource for all of us.

Happy anniversary Anthony. Since I’ve been here pretty much from the beginning, I’ve enjoyed watching this site grow into what it is today.

PS. Just give me the word, and I’ll drag myself back up to that horrible place in CA called Yosemite National Park to take more pics of the station up there. “Cause, you know, I just won’t go back to that hell hole without a reason…. (you do need more pictures, right??? :-) )

PPS. Last week, Brian Dunning @ Skeptoid did a podcast on the ten worst science sites on the web. I was stunned and relieved that neither WUWT or Climate Audit were on that list. I know Dunning got more than a few hysterically angry letter for that omission. I do really like Dunning’s show, along with another skeptic podcast “Skeptics Guide To The Universe”, but they do have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to anything climate science.

Anthony you will be receiving uncountable, well deserved kudos today. Thank-you for the platform, but I also want to acknowledge the many fine commenter(s) and contributors. They and yourself, have given this blog real teeth and acuity.

I look forward to the day when CAGW is no longer in our faces, and we begin to discuss other science proportionately. Oh Happy Days! GK

Congratulations Mr. Watts!! You have made a huge difference in helping society from being made slaves to political ideology grounded in nothing but deceit and deception. Well done and please keep up the extraordinary work you do!!

Anthony, WUWT is also on my daily list. I’ve not posted any comments before but thought you might want to look at this: http://www.nyelabs.com/
Bill Nye admits “The Climate Project people created their own version, but apparently they didn’t test it very well. One of our strident climate change deniers seized on their corner cutting and showed their demonstration didn’t demonstrate anything.”
I too used to believe global warming was a very serious problem before happening upon Steve McIntyre’s blog one night (stayed up all night absorbing it), and shortly after found yours. I can’t conceive of how you are able to maintain such an informative and worthwhile site. It’s often the first and last site I look at each day. Congratulations.

Congratulation on surviving for five years in the rough and tumble blog-o-sphere. Your work has been an inspiration for me to muddle on with my own blogs and appreciate the opportunity to contribute to WUWT once in a while. We visit several times a day looking for inspiration. Thank for all that you do.

Three and 1/2 years ago, when my son was a high school sophomore beginning policy debate on a national topic related to whether the U.S. government should finance alternative energy sources, I decided to become better informed and find out whether concerns over global warming were well founded. I began by reading DOE multi-year plans, IPPC reports and the like. Something I could not put my finger on in such documents left me unconvinced–they just didn’t pass my unscientific “smell test”. Moreover, being now almost 67, I am old enough to remember the “Coming Ice Age” stories during the 1970s. Fortunately, I soon stumbled on to your blog and gradually became much “better informed”; so much more was passing my “smell test”. Ever since I have been a frequent, sometimes daily, reader. Anthony, thank you so much for what you and so many others who have found a home on your blog do.

Happy 5th ….5 the number for Grace …thanks for the info, from all that grace the pages of the best science blog on the www …as a simple person trying to make heads or tales of the discussion I find some ground in the variability of it all ….peace …terry

Happy birthday to WUWT! And thanks, Anthony, for putting in and investing so much to build up this community of deep discourse that ranges across the whole spectrum. you have sacrificed a great deal, and had a profound impact on the climate and scientific debate landscape. It’s forums like this, where everyone can come together and reason, even those who are far out there in their ideas, that allow us to strain out the truth from the noise of life.

Like so many others — Thank You Anthony, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to share thoughts with and be stimulated by the discussions on WUWT. Your blog is a very worthy effort, and please do take some time for your family and yourself. You certainly deserve some “me time” and the blog denizens here will get by without you for a while thanks to your moderators and the wealth of knowledge this community shares.

For your vacation may I suggest late July early August salmon fishing at Rivers Inlet, Canada. I know a lodge there where you are limited to three activities: eat, sleep, fish. That’s it. No TV, no computers, no “nothing else”. The only ways into and out of the lodge (a floating camp) are by boat or sea plane–no roads. If you’re interested, send me an e-mail and I’ll give you the name of the lodge I go to every other year.

A heartfelt congratulations Anthony on what you’ve accomplished with WUWT in five years, and for hanging in there. By challenging the so-called “consensus” this site has been a huge pain for the Alarmist community, and set them back greatly, allowing other factors to kick in as well. Blowing the whole Climategate bomb up was a huge accomplishment in itself.
I too have a half dozen of those Arbor Day Foundation Spruce trees from around 1990, and they are all doing quite well. I used to be concerned about C02, but now I can just enjoy the trees for what they are.

Have to add my thanks Anthony. Finding your site, about three years ago, proved to be the ideal way for me to expand the climate science knowledge, which I had researched in a haphazard way over the couple of years before that.
Loads of information from both the articles and your commenters. Enormously helpful. And where else could one get it?!
I’m extremely grateful to you. Do please keep it up.

On a personal note, after recently retiring after 39 years of teaching high school physics and chemistry, WUWT is a perfect place to continue both teaching and learning real science. Thank you very much for that opportunity!

In both the articles and many excellent comments following the articles, WUWT is a perfect place for people to get excellent climate related ideas to disseminate to others. So I am sure your influence is far beyond the many people who actually read your site.

Thank you for all your effort to sustain this blog. Like many others, at least, I visit your site daily for news, information, and education. Over the last five years, your site has changed/improved dramatically. I am impressed on your surfacestation.org “grassroots” effort to provide station FACTS that cannot be ignored. As technologies and access improve, the next five years will be exciting.

Thank you Anthony and congratulations! Your site stimulates others in various European countries and is essential for us Europeans. The synchronising of the press on pro AGW is in some EU countries frightening at times. Keep on doing the good work, although I advice you to take your two weeks off.
Your readers will understand and be happy if you did so!

An associate of mine reminded me, during a final design review process, that it can be rather stressful to get in the way of a moving train. The inertia is so great that it is near to impossible to not get hurt (some of the BAD noted above) when asking if the train is going to fast or in the right direction. I arrived at your site about 10 months ago while researching a rather mundane cost effectiveness question on certain types of energy generation. I am rather late to the party to be looking at the scientific foundations of climate science and the factors that can influence climate.

It is here at your site (as well as Lucyskywalkers, JoNova’s and Judith Curry’s Climate Etc.) that I have been able to get a bit of a handle on the science (with underlying assumptions, and handling of uncertainty). I am not sure know where I saw my first reference to Climate Science being at about the same level of development as macro economic theory was a few years back, but it was after seeing this quote that the idea of the Science being settled just didn’t feel correct. If I didn’t come across the reference directly in one of your posts, then I am sure I was directed to it from a comment in Tips and Notes- which I try to keep up on…………. .

When the John Adams “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes” award get established you (and you web site) have my vote.

Thank you for letting us know were the train is (who is conducting it’s path and speed), how it got to where it is and where it is headed. Thanks for all you, and the team working on the web site, do.

Many happy returns! I start my day here, most of the week, and sometimes come in just before I retire. This is not just entertainment; it’s where we learn facts suppressed by the pitiful remnant of our once-great MSM. Keep up the good work, but try to stay balanced: get some rest, take frequent breaks, enjoy yourself. Many, many thanks for all you’ve done. Thanks, too, to your modertors and the usual gang of wise and well-informed commenters.

I really appreciate everything you do, Anthony, and thought the post you wrote here to celebrate WUWT’s fifth birthday was first-rate.

I’ve been puzzling why historians of science have not been all over the story of climate alarmism as a fraudulent science. My former mentor, whom I will not name for the sake of my own anonymity (the need for which has recently been reinforced for me) was able to tell me why.

He had left the history of science a while ago because its practitioners by and large have abandoned the quest to develop a ‘true’ understanding of how events and ideas shape science. Indeed, they have in the last couple of decades eschewed any attempts to understand how politics and political understandings influence or shape science.

He comments, quite rightly, that when they abandoned truth they demanded ‘reflexivity’ of explanation – i.e. to treat theories widely believed to be true as being epistemologically equal with theories widely believed to be not true (or reflective of reality). Therefore, he is stunned that they abandon these standards in the case of climate science. The received science is taken as the absolute truth. He does not understand why they are so blind to their own double standards.

Reading WUWT has shaped my professional understanding of my own research and I will forever be indebted to this website and its may contributor, moderators and commenters for that. As a historian, I am proud of this site for what it does, and what it has accomplished. I am also proud that it had already become a daily feature for me for over a year before Climategate broke. As somebody already said above, the revelations of Climategate came as no surprise to dedicated followers of WUWT. But what a ride Climategate gave us!

I am sorry but not surprised that some of the nastiest stuff in the bad and ugly columns originated here in Toronto. As to the sum of the bad stuff, Anthony, you must be doing something right!

Congratulations Anthony on 5 successful years. Reading WUWT has been watching history in the making. When the books are written about the rise and fall of The Great Greenhouse Delusion, WUWT will be mentioned among the true storm troopers of scientific sanity, changing the course of history. No less.

Congratulations, and I hope there are many more anniversaries to come! 5 years – has it really been that long? I found this site early in the Spring of ’08, and you have been on my daily “Must Read” list ever since! If *any* climate news breaks, I look here first to learn about it.

Anthony,
Congratulations, and thank you… so much… for your tireless efforts. Please thank your family on our behalf — we realize they are a great part of what you do and why. You have made such an impact in some many ways not only in the climate debate but in people’s individual lives. I hope you have many more “5-Year” Anniversaries! All the best!

Gee whiz! Anthony.
Congratulations! Most of all Thank you!
I do have a science question: Why, after reading your essay and the messages from around the world, do I have a lump in my throat and moist eyeballs?

Happy Birthday and Thank You. Who knows what will be discovered in the world of climate science over coming years – your contributions (and those of your contributors and commenters) have been important. Unfortunately they have prevented me from making much progress on the “retirement task list” that my wife gave me, four+ years ago. But please take care of your own health – and of those near and dear.

Congratulations,
My first visit here was after reading something about sunspots and how they possibly affect the weather. I tried to see it from the warmest point of view, but could’nt find the science, only rhetoric and scar mongering. now when I look out across the green landscape from my kitchen window, instead of worrying about CO2, I think of how important It is to all of us.
DC.

Thank you, Anthony.
It’s been a real privilege to have helped with the Surface Station survey, and to have so many of my dopey comments tolerated here.
WUWT has been a real education for me, and its presence on the web has helped save the planet from some of the disastrous governmental schemes that might otherwise have been inflicted on us.
The right person with the right idea, just in the nick of time.

Happy birthday WUWT.Well done Anthony,thank you for providing a place for the free thinking
to make comments, and air our opinions on the lack of the scientific method in todays climate science..long may it continue

Time to start a new WUWT tradition … once a month, take a three-day weekend, not necessarily associated with any holiday. On a Thursday evening, do a sticky open thread post, empty your “mail box”, then shut off your computer and don’t even think about it for the next three days. I guarantee that, come Monday morning, everything that happened electronically that requires your attention will still be there, in your “mail box”, on your blog, or elsewhere on the web.

A three-day weekend that is taken like this, once a month, does more to recharge you than any annual weekly vacation. You can do whatever you want … snuggle with your wife w/o the distraction of thinking about a post you might be working on … putter about the house doing things you keep putting off, so that, if it takes an extra couple hours to finish, you won’t feel rushed to get back to blog posting … chase Kenji around the yard and just act foolish w/o worries that you might be wasting time – such time is never a waste.

Just think of this as a vacation spread throughout the year that is, conservatively, twelve days long, or, liberally, thirty six days longs.

Thank you Anthony, for having the courage of your convictions and the willpower to stick with your chosen path though all the good, bad and ugly. WUWT was a very big influence on my own transformation from alarmist to sceptic and for that I’d like to thank the army of commenters here for the lively debates I initially just followed before eventually joining in.

Congratulations, Anthony! I’m humbled just reading about your experiences and all you’ve been through the past 5 years. Nothing lasts forever, but here’s hoping you keep up the great work for many more years to come!

Happy Birthday to WUWT!
Thank you Anthony. Thank you for the effort you and the moderators have put into WUWT. You have changed the world. Today, whenever I read the comments to online stories from the MSM about climate, I am seeing people commenting with far more knowledge than the MSM journalists themselves. They are not getting this knowledge from the MSM. In the climate debate, New Media is now king. The birth and evolution of WUWT is a shining example of the power of New Media. Those planing their strategies at the Endangered Atmosphere meeting in 1975 never anticipated the democratic power of the Internet. WUWT is now part of the history of both science and media. You can be counted as one of the happy few on St. Crispins day.

Many congratulations Anthony on achieving this 5th Anniversary milestone.
Your daily output is phenomenal, especially considering it is only a “part-time” occupation. I hope you are successful in getting more contributors, so that you can find more time for your family and business. But I also hope that this blog continues to be an effective alternative perspective to the dogma of the mainstream.

You do know you can offset the stomach ache by making sure you’re making a few extra bucks, right? And besides you can have some fun doing it, just insert an annoying ad in every post posted by a troll. :-p

When you set out on a Journey, you really never know where it will take you in life.
From ‘Lord of the Rings’, Book 1, Chapter 1
‘The Road':
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

It was three years ago with the almost-unanimous passing of the Climate Change Act in the UK that I really started to smell a rat, having had suspicions since AR4 that maybe the science didn’t back up the political rhetoric. The Great Global Warming Swindle slipped through the net and aired for about the first time some of the scientific objections to global warming theory, but it was only through discovering WUWT via a comment to an article on the Telegraph website that I started to become aware just how patchy the so-called consensus was.

Since the run-up to Copenhagen, and particularly Climategate, I’d checked out WUWT just about every day, and it’s now the first site I look at every day and come back to throughout the day. Thank you so much for informing, educating and entertaining. That is the remit of some media organisation here that has long since abandoned it, but you are the modern standard-bearer.

Thanks also to all contributors and bloggers as you have all increased my knowledge tremendously. Who knew that climate was so complex with so many unknowns? If only the pro-AGW crowd would acknowledge how much we DON’T know.

Thank you Anthony from a long time reader, sometime commenter. Your blog is a “must read” for me every day and I have learned much about climate, CO2, and human nature because of your efforts and those of your contributors.
Take that REAL vacation, you have more than earned it. The blog is invaluable, but not worth your health and wellbeing.

You were so proud of that line that you posted it and then reposted it a few days later. And yet you get upset by “denigrating and juvenile things” if you believe they are written about you. You’re like a child in the playground. Don’t call the other kids names if you don’t want to be called names yourself.

That was a very heartfelt post Anthony and is one of the reasons I have to come here at least once a day. You obviously are a very honest and caring human being and that came across wonderfully. It’s an honour to have some of your caliber in the realist camp.

Thanks so much for all your work and insight. Have been coming here for almost 4 years now and inspired me to become an “activist” with letters to editors etc. Your site was brought to my attention by a client/friend. As a history buff that noticed the infamous hockey stick deleting the MWP as well as the LIA his suggestion was to start at your site and work from there. Since then I have, and still am, wondering why most history departments and their tenured staff at venerable learning institutions have been quiet on the obvious fraudulent graph.
Anthony, please do take the time to relax. Flung some libation money for both you and the missus. From one who has been there: You cannot look after her if you need looking after.
All the best,
Joe Prins in Alberta

Anthony, as I’ve told you by email and by phone, you do a great service to thinking people everywhere, and do so in an interesting way. I often disagree (sometimes strongly) with opinions expressed here, but I’ve also learned a great deal by being motivated and forced to question my assumptions and dig deeper into the research. And yes, though I’m still a “warmist”, some of my opinions have changed because of information first brought to my attention on WUWT.

Mr.Watts, Thank you for WUWT. I felt very alone in my skepticism before I found this site. I have visited daily for some time now. I feel much more optimistic that the truth shall prevail.
In my view, it did indeed turn out that “green” is the new “red”. As the scientific facts emerge the cabal that drives the whole AGW lie becomes apparent. Apparent in that there must be a cabal for such a huge ruse to be perpetrated.

Hi Anthony and Congratulations! In the US Military you would have, by now, received a Bronze Star Medal for “meritorious service in ground operations (ie, proper science reporting /questioning) against hostile emeny forces (ie, CAGW proponents).
Keep up the great work!

Golligosh, what a strange coincidence. Seems more than that. Your third birthday, and FOIA posted those links, including the one that hacked RC’s website to let Steve know “a miracle has happened“. I’ve checked and added the ref. from Jeff Id’s blog to Steve’s post.

Thank you for turning your intelligence and hard work to bear upon the AGW hoax!.

In the future when the scoundrels have been routed and the AGW scandal is written about, talked about, and studied in schools, you will be rightly remembered for lifting your lantern high in search of truth. And algore, upon bended knee, shall proffer up his Nobel prize to you and beg forgiveness for his deceptions and calumny (well maybe that won’t happen).

Anthony – I can’t thank you enough for the very educational content of your blogsite. Keep up the great work!

Bill Nye criticized your Al Gore experiment duplication, because there was insufficient air in the container. Well, that is almost the point – How can a minor gas comprising .03% of the atmosphere cause so much warming?

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
–Theodore Roosevelt

Almost 100,000,000 (one hundred million) views on your site at the age of 5. WOW! And done on topics that would primarily attract technical / scientific minds. WOW! JUST WOW!

I hope to see you recognized as one of the top 50 most influential persons awards.

In five years you have achieved a very high degree of name recognition and respect on an international level. That was done as a result of your personal efforts and not as a result of some media blitz. That is an honor that should be bestowed on you and you should take pride and personal satisfaction. You have gained the respect of many of the more affuent and upper level (not a good choice of wording, it’s late) scientific / critical thinkers from whom respect can only be earned. Sir, you have earned it.

Got a high-speed connection during this week in 2009. Quickly became a WUWT daily visitor. Even did a weather station for the project. In fact, I think the “How not to measure temperature, part ?” was the hook for me. Fits well with my tendency toward cynicism. Those are still worth a look by new visitors to WUWT but as I write this there are already 348 comments so I doubt many will see this. Maybe you should make a post linking to your top 10 “How not to . . .” pages. Other “Skeptical Views” folks might like to link to such a list. On the other hand – take a break. Go fishing.

Happy Birthday WUWT
Started reading after Christopher Booker quoted you in his the Sunday Telegraph column. Since then I have learned so much about many things and I thank you all very much and pray you will get the break you need.
God Bless you and your family. James Bull

Anthony (if I may be so informal as we have not been introduced) , I would like to add my congratulations to the multitude already expressed.

As both a ‘huckster’ and a UK geography teacher I have much enjoyed the education of a daily visit to this site and appreciate the breadth and depth of knowledge shown by your good self and all the other contributors. I have also appreciated the tolerance shown to a variety of views.

As a teacher I am trying to educate my pupils to have an open mind and to question the science behind the hype, whilst being constrained by the party line defined in the syllabus and text books. WUWT provides a vital resource with an up to date assessment and source of information from all viewpoints.

Anthony: Congrats on your massive successes piling up. It has to be said your skill in presenting the various forms of information, data, graphs, pics, quotations, links, citations, etc. is breathtaking, Your analysis spot on and your restraint with the bone heads palpable. Your patience and competence in this battle is driving the AGWers mad. But ‘that upload’ before the door shut on your plane was a master stroke. No one will convince me that the Copenhagen agenda wasn’t scuttled because of it. So…..we all owe you a couple of Trillion!!!

Anthony, like many, many others round the world, I am forever in your debt. Thank you for your dogged persistence, your intelligence, your sense of fun and your continuing effort, with your many helpers and supporters, to tell the truth, and shame the devil. He has no shame, but he’s looking less cocky. Long way to go, but you’ve made it possible. WUWT is bloody brilliant!

Take great care of yourself, and enjoy that communications-free holiday. You’ve more than earned it.

Five years ago I felt I was alone with my views on global warming, then in 2008 I came across your site, you said Burt & Harrison are your heros, but to a lot of us Anthony your our hero. Thanks for the last five years.

Thank you Anthony for having this blog, and for letting me participate in its operation. It’s been a fantastic place for sanity checks, to know I’m not the only person who thinks this way, and to start convincing the rest of the world of their errors.

Happy fifth blog birthday. It is amazingly difficult to remain focused on your core business with the great scientific sucking in of the climate debate. The fundamental physics of it is interesting and in a better world would be a niche field as a side note to an AGU conference. With the political weight thrown behind it, the climate science industrial complex has become what president Eisenhower warned us of in his farewell speech.

<em<Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Sorry to be late adding my congratulations and thanks, but I am horribly busy dealing with other matters and don’t get the time any more to make my daily visit. My interest has not waned – would hate you to get that impression – and I think the arguments are now so much more nuanced that I need to keep coming back here to learn more.

I, too, was directed here by Booker whenever it was that he first mentioned you. It feels as though it was eons ago, so much so that I find it hard to believe you have only been churning out WUWT for five years. We are all deeply appreciative of your efforts and sacrifices (but want you to keep going). Thanks,

Anthony, regarding Bill Nye’s response to your replication of his experiment. You nailed it. I copied screen shots from his experiment and from your experiment re-sized the pictures such that the earth inside of the jars measured the same. When you then measure the size of the jars in the two different experiments they are identical. The poor “science guy” simply does not understand the physics of why this experiment cannot work the way he wants it to. Even after you explained it to him.

I suppose since Anthony cites Climate Audit as inspiration, and I helped found Climate Audit, I should take a little reflected glory from WUWT.

Yeah right. WUWT is a triumph because of Anthony’s hard work. My ego can handle it.

Actually I took inspiration from the late John Daly’s weblog, as well as other people who managed to get the message out despite insuperable obstacles. Standing on giant’s shoulders, as it were.

What I realised was that in order to face up to the bullying and intimidation, one needs to be able to rebut in real time, react in real time, publish new information in real time. Which means weblogging on the Internet.

Scientists who could not or would not publish on the web become quickly overwhelmed by the pace of the web in comparison to the glacial speed of the peer review system (except when rebutting a climate skeptic, when the system suddenly kicks in a turbo).

I am pleased for Anthony, and wish I could help more to make WUWT less of a burden. Maybe my lottery number will come up.

I must confess, I read RealClimate, ClimateProgress and others very rarely. Such high-octane hatred is difficult for me to deal with especially as they allow little or no right of reply.

Happy Fifth Birthday!
Anthony, I would like to add my thanks and appreciation to you for your fantastic website. The fact that it has affected your health is not good, you need to take a break. I am sure that you could take a month off to give your attention to your family and business. The fact that you have been smeared, had your website “copied” and your trash examined says it all. They are afraid, very afraid that their “religion” is being questioned.
I first read about this website in Christopher Booker’s column in the Sunday Telegraph, He is one of your many fans and like you talks a great deal of sense.
Unlike others I hope this website is not here in five years, because the general public and politicians will have realised that the AGW myth is just that, a myth. But like all scares there will be another one to take it’s place. At least you had the foresight to name your website “Watts Up With That” instead of “Climates Are Us” or something similar so you can deal with mankind’s next
Hysteria.
Best of luck for the future and heartfelt thanks for what you have done in the past.

Congratulations, Anthony and mods, authors, long-time posters, newcomers and even the advocatus diaboli among us (you know who you are) for ‘sticking with it’ these five years … and what a trip it has been! Tempus fugit (Time has flown)!

Like others have mentioned, I migrated here from another site, specifically, Climate Audit, after having digested the seminal work by Steve McIntyre, et al; kudos to SMc for his contribution and contributors as well.

2 wks untethered, totally? I perdiks anxiety and guilt attacks, and fierce itching in the fingertips.

Be warned, also, that Austrian research into vacation effects (especially the sun and sloth types) found long-term IQ decreases, more or less proportional to the duration of the vacation. Prob’ly you won’t be sharp enough to tell the difference, afterwards, though.
;(
;)

Anthony is a mensch, a better man than I. I’m not a bad guy [IMHO], but there are few people in this debate who are as ethical as Anthony, and none more.

One thing I would like to see is a button that makes WUWT a readers’ home page. With so much competition for eyeballs, anything that gets the truth out is a winner.

Happy 5th Birthday, WUWT! Three quarters of a million reader comments in only 5 years, and counting. Take that, RC, tamina, pseudo-skeptical pseudo-science, and all the other censoring climate alarmist propaganda blogs. Your days are numbered.☺☺☺